Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“ To the point, dear child! to the point!” urged Miss Lyon.
“You are thinking ill of me?” asked the girl, raising those meek prayerful eyes to the face of the young lady.
“No, Drusilla! No one can judge you with more leniency than I shall, my poor, dear child. Do not fear to open your heart to me,” said Miss Lyon.
“I have no cause to fear on my own account, lady. You said that you would judge me with leniency. You meant that you would judge me with charity. But I am not a subject of charity, Miss Lyon, I am a subject for justice,” answered the girl, with gentle dignity. ”

“ You must enact the bride this evening.”
“In the name of Heaven, what is this that you are proposing to me?” exclaimed Drusilla, gazing in wonder at Miss Lyon.
“That you shall take my place in this evening’s solemn farce and be fast married to your husband, if you never were before,” said Anna, calmly.
“Impossible, Miss Lyon! He would reject me at first sight, and I!—I should die of mortification!”
“Yes, if he should be permitted to recognize you, he might reject you. But he is not to be favored with a sight of your face until he is irrecoverably bound to you.” ”

“ I have felt all the evening as if something was hanging over me—I cannot tell what. Yes, the air is full of electricity,” she said, and stopped and shuddered.
“My child, superstitious people say that dreams and presentiments go by contraries. If you dream of a death, it is a sign of a wedding; if you have a foreboding of evil, it is a sign some good is about to happen to you.”
“But I do not know whether my foreboding is of good or evil,” she said, softly smiling.
“I will tell you, then, my darling. It is of both, since it foreshadows love and marriage, Drusilla,” he answered, gravely. ”

“ He would spend the evening with Anna at some fashionable assembly, where he saw her, in all the splendor of beauty and pride of place, the all-admired belle of the season, the reigning queen of society;—and then, full of the intoxication of her new charms, he would return home to find Drusilla, pale, weary and depressed, and he would start off to his own room to curse the fate that had so long blinded him to the transcendent attractions of his high-born cousin, and bound him for life to the insignificant daughter of his housekeeper. ”

“ There were not half a dozen lines in the whole letter, and Drusilla thought the writing did not look like Alexander’s hand. But she read it over and over again, and her tears dropped slowly down upon it as she murmured:
“‘Too busy to write’ to me—‘too busy to write.’ Oh, Alick, dear, what sort of business would it be that could keep me from writing to you for ten whole days? But, then, I am a woman and you are a man, and that makes all the difference, I suppose. But, oh, my heart is so weak—so weak, my Heavenly Father!” she cried, suddenly, in her sorrow, appealing to the All Compassionate. ”

“ In less than an hour, Pina, overcome with the heat of the fire and the heaviness of her own head, fell fast asleep.
And Drusilla watched on, almost as much alone as if her maid had been a hundred miles away—as very likely she was, in the spirit.
Drusilla was hoping against hope, that her too much loved husband might return home and in safety; but she could not justify this hope to her reason, for certainly this was a night in which no man in his senses, who valued his life and limbs, would take the road; and just as certainly, Alexander had a wholsome regard for his own ”

“ I never was so glad of anything in my life! My child, I never loved Anna except as a cousin. She never loved me in any other than a cousinly way. We were betrothed by our parents—a sure process to prevent our ever falling in love with each other. Ours was to be ‘a union of hands and a union of lands,’ but not ‘a union of hearts.’ We really never wished to marry each other. She loved Richard as well as she can love anybody, and I—I love you as I never loved any other. Come, my darling, you are to be mine forever. ”

“ And though Anna being in half mourning refrained from dancing, she seldom retired from the scene until one or two o’clock.
For many days and nights Drusilla bore this state of things with exceeding patience and cheerfulness; always accepting his excuses for leaving her in the morning, and always having the lighted windows, the warm drawing-room, the bright fire and the hot supper to welcome him at night. But ah! worship him as she would, she was but a soul encased in flesh and blood, and her health and spirits from loneliness and late hours, long continued, began to suffer. ”

“ But oh, dear Alick, if you were to be maimed by accident or marked by illness, I should love you quite as much as I do now, and even more tenderly, I think, as I know I shall love you when you are old and gray.”
“Bah! I would rather die than grow old and gray; but the time for that is far enough off, thank Heaven!” said Alexander, as he led her back into the house.
He took her into the drawing-room and showed her three musical instruments, each of the very best quality—a piano, a harp and a guitar. Upon a stand near was a collection of old standard music, and of all the best new pieces out. ”

“ It is a new place, my little love. The house and stable only are finished and walled in. The grounds are not laid out or even cleared, as you may see by the thicket crowding up to the very windows,” replied Alexander.
“But, I think I like it even better just so. There is something very fascinating to me in the deep, wild wood, where the trees may grow as they please, without touch of ax or pruning knife, and where birds may sing and rabbits run without fear of trap or fowling-piece,” said Drusilla. ”

“ Alexander stared blankly at the lady for a moment, and then exclaimed:
“Heaven and earth, Madam, what is it that you mean?”
“Sir, it is not courteous to cross-question me in this manner,” said Mrs. Irving, blushing between embarrassment and anger.
“Not courteous! Am I to be on courteous terms with one who is stabbing.—Madam, if you were not a woman—But let that pass. I now insist upon knowing what you mean by saying that Drusilla Sterling’s spotless name is associated with mine in a manner that must be fatal to her,” indignantly exclaimed Alexander. ”

“ And oh, illness in woman is very repulsive to most men, and especially to those of Alexander Lyon’s fastidious nature and self-indulgent habits. Illness pales the cheeks and dims the eyes; and worse than all, it frets the nerves and tries the temper.
So it was with Drusilla: weary and anxious, suffering in mind and body, when Alexander came home near morning she could not always welcome him with the happy glances he had been accustomed to receive from her. ”

“ Leo went upon his errand, and Pina hurried up to her mistress’s chamber.
Drusilla had thrown herself out of bed, and was walking distractedly up and down the room, with her dark hair falling down over her white night-dress, her face pale, her eyes wild, and her fingers wreathed and wrung together in an agony of grief.
Vain were all Pina’s efforts to soothe her.
“Oh, I do but feel my trouble more and more! more and more as the hours go by! If I only could see him! If I could see him once and speak to him, he would hear me! ”

“ Alexander—a poor girl like myself—your late housekeeper’s child—only half educated, too—I am not fit to be your wife,” she said, raising her meek eyes to his face, and then suddenly dropping them.
“Not fit to be my wife! If you are not, it is only because you are so much too good for me!” vehemently exclaimed Drusilla’s lover, and he spoke the truth.
“Oh no! Oh no! please do not say such things to me. I am but a poor, ignorant child, of very humble position. You are a gentleman of rank and wealth. Indeed, sir, it is not suitable——”
“Drusilla! You do not love me!” ”

“ I was—trembling,” faltered the girl.
“Trembling, my darling? Why should you tremble? No evil shall come near you while I live,” said Alexander, tenderly. “Come, tell me why you were trembling?”
“It was—but you will laugh at me?”
“No, indeed, my sweet——”
“It was with a sort of presentiment that oppressed me,” said Drusilla, in a tone deepened with awe.
“A humming-bird is said to tremble before an approaching storm, though no cloud be in the sky. You are as sensitive as a humming-bird, my pet; do you tremble at an approaching storm?” smiled Alexander, gently caressing her. ”

“ When sinners can find no other excuse for sin, they plead fate.
Alexander, sitting and gazing dreamily into the lights and shadows of his glowing coal fire, said to himself that fate had set itself against his union with Anna, and fate had thrown Drusilla into his arms. He recalled the facts that his wedding with Anna, twice fixed, had been twice stopped by the hand of death; that Anna did not love him, and did love Richard Hammond: that he himself did not love Anna, but loved Drusilla; that Drusilla loved him, and had most innocently suffered reproach and injury on his account ”

“ There’s Anna will wear twice as many changes of apparel in ten days,” he said.
“Ah, but Miss Anna is an heiress.”
“And you are the wife of a—wealthy man, if not a good one,” laughed Alexander. “But come, I dare say supper is waiting and spoiling. I will show you the rest of your little house to-morrow, and also your little carriage and pair of ponies——”
“Oh, indeed you do too much for me.—I think I have not been used to having such things—of my own,” said Drusilla, meekly and confusedly. ”

“ But before she could observe more the coach had rushed by and left the festive scene far behind.
Once she noticed a little road-side hut, and in its doorway, a poor, old woman, thinly clad, holding a lantern in her hand and bending outward in an attitude of intense anxiety, as if looking for some one. “In her poor way, she is watching and waiting, as I used to do. Has she a husband, or perhaps a son, who is breaking her heart?” mused Drusilla, as the coach swung onward and left this sad picture also in its rear. ”

“ Lyon overthrew her self-control. In speaking of him her voice faltered, then she choked, gasped and broke into a violent fit of sobs and tears that shook her fragile frame almost to the point of dissolution.
The nurse was much too wise to coax or scold her patient. But the sly old fox, who had blown her daughter up for meddling with dangerous drugs, went herself and mixed a composing draught for the sufferer—and not of the harmless valerian that had been administered by Pina, but of potent morphine that in a few moments sent Drusilla into a sleep that lasted all that afternoon and night. ”

“ Don’t be a coxcomb, Alick, my dear. You mean little Drusa? She’s a child and has everything to learn yet of proper self-respect in her association with gentlemen. But we are not talking of her just now. I hate to send you from me, Alick; but I really do think you are bound to pay Anna the respect of going to Old Lyon Hall. I would go myself, if I felt equal to the journey, and take you as an escort; but as I am, I must let you go alone. There is a coach leaves to-morrow at seven in the morning. ”

“ He nearly uttered an oath consigning his cousin to perdition, but he caught himself in time, and added: “Miss Anna and myself are parted (by a hundred miles of space,”) was his mental reservation the first.
“She has broken with you, then?” said Drusilla, who never dreamed of such a possibility as his breaking faith with any one.
“Yes, she has, (in effect,”) was his mental reservation the second.
“Oh, how could—how could she do it?” inquired Drusilla, incredulously; for to her fond, worshipping heart, it seemed that any woman who could break faith with Alexander must be insane or lost. ”